


The Issue of Adam

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Post Swan Song, Winchester Family Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:04:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sam had to stay in the Pit, hold Lucifer in. The shaman had been clear about that, and Dean had felt the truth in his bones, prickling and painful.  But Adam had a chance, he’d not said yes but under duress, had not chosen to go into the Pit..."</p><p> </p><p>Dean has one chance to save at least one of his brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Issue of Adam

**Author's Note:**

> The Challenge: A 500 word Fix-It, any fandom, any scenario, in twenty minutes or less. 
> 
> My take: but what about Adam?
> 
> I’m… pretty sure this is not anywhere in the definition of “fix.”

The spell had involved more fiddly bits than Dean ever wanted to think about again, ingredients that he otherwise would have avoided, refused to touch.  But there wasn’t much he wouldn’t touch, these days. Not since - 

_No. Stop._

He needed to be calm for this, that was the important thing.  He needed to be calm and steady and not let anything get in the way of mixing everything just right, getting everything perfect.  He only had one shot.  The old shaman had been clear about that: only one chance for this to work, ever.

He knelt in the dirt, his arms bare to the night air, his skin daubed with sigils of clay and blood.  The liquid pooled in his palms spilled up his hands, sliding along his veins like it wanted back inside, creeping past his wrists, into his elbows, where it pooled, darkly metallic and stinking like all the rotten sewage in the world.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t scrunch his nose at the stink, but kept chanting the words, over and over again, keeping the vision clear in his head: the too-familiar eyes, the shape of his chin, the nose he must’ve gotten from his mother, the defiant, arrogant tone of his voice that was a hundred percent Winchester.

“Adam!”  He called the name without hesitation, infusing it with every sound he’d ever used to get his brother’s attention, every ounce of command he’d learned over three decades, every drop of loyalty and guilt and determination he had in him.

The Pit echoed around him: he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t smell it, but he knew it was there, something infinite and compressed, all the loss in the universe. If he listened he would hear the screaming but it would be his own memories, his own agony, and he would be lost within it forever.

“Adam!”

The Pit moved around him, trying to shake him, shove him away.  He held steady, his arms and thighs aching with the effort.  One tiny dot within burning his veins, like calling to like, fingertips to fingertips, almost touching, and he gasped, willing his fingers to be longer, willing his brother to stretch just a bit further, to connect, to come home…

_Sammy_

Sam was lost to him.  Sam had to stay in the Pit, hold Lucifer in. The shaman had been clear about that, and Dean had felt the truth in his bones, prickling and painful.  But Adam had a chance, he’d not said yes but under duress, had not chosen to go into the Pit.  If they could touch, connect, the spell would work.  He just had to stay steady, and -

“Adam!” He called the third time, and the liquid on his skin flared, searing to the bone, lighting the shadows like a beacon.  Was it enough?  It had to be enough.  It _had_ to be.

Something brushed his fingertips, a cold, tickling rasp, and he couldn’t help himself, fingers lunging, grasping wildly for that touch, trying to curl around flesh and pull it home…

then the touch was gone, rejected.

The flare died down to ashes in his veins, the darkness absolute.

“Adam.”  A whisper now, broken, despairing.

 

                                             o0o

 

In the cold dawn light, Dean Winchester packed up his car, and left Stull Cemetery behind, again. Alone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah... I really do believe that a) Dean would in no way ever just forget about a brother and b) Adam was just enough of an emotionally damaged snot at that point to refuse his half-brother's offer of rescue, preferring to martyr himself to his own sense of hard treatment, especially since he really had no idea how bad it was going to get....
> 
>  
> 
> Wow. I need to go write something light and fluffy and cheerful, involving Sam and a puppy and ice cream, or something....


End file.
